#postdbc

[gintsugi]

Breathing Room.

Sunday sundaes sun day. The rest of the past week went by pretty smoothly. I’m still working on one of the coding challenges I was assigned, an Unbeatable Tic-Tac-Toe, but I’ve been allowing myself to live a lot more during the past few days.  No, I’m not slacking, I’m just spending some time AWAY from the computer like every other coder should. The job hunt only gets more hectic as time goes on, so I’m really telling myself to remember that it’s okay to take breaks. Gotta make time to calm your nerves and unwind.  Does that mean I’ll be super prepared the day after I’ve taken a break to get back into the swing of things? No, I wish. Sometimes I’ll be even more stressed out because I’ll think that I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.  Stop that.

It’s funny, hearing about all of the other things everyone else has to say about their job hunt experience so far. You’ll almost always hear about the numbers game. And even if someone says to not just blindly apply to jobs like a not-so-experienced Call of Duty player who only knows how to spray and pray, they’ll probably say something like, “Oh, but make sure you’re active on GitHub.” In other words, “Play the number games even though I just told you not to”. Anyways, my goal is to finish Tic-Tac-Toe by mid-week if not sooner, and apply to more companies this week and whatnot. I’m more prepared to put in work this week given that I got to spend time hanging out with friends, go hiking along the Coastal Trail, play games, catch up on some TV shows, Skype with my parents, etc. over the past few days. Music has been keeping my alive as always. Right now I’m just really feeling out some acoustic songs. Just discovered Daniela Andrade today, and man I really love her cover of Childish Gambino’s Telegraph Ave. Not sure if I’d be able to code to it, but I’ll definitely be listening to it when I’m just tryna kick it. Check the link below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlDANkA_4Kg

[gintsugi]

Slow & Steady.

That’s how I plan on taking on the rest of this week at least. I spent Monday and Tuesday easing my way into the week by catching up with college friends who were in the area. Treated myself to some ACTUAL food for once. Delish. I should treat myself more... once I get a job. Quickly summarizing the week so far, I received a coding challenge on Monday and another one today, both of which I find interesting and fun. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to really talk about the challenges here or anything..even though people post them on GlassDoor and whatnot all the time. Playing it safe haha. Besides that, I’ve FINALLY faxed my 401k related forms so I can breathe a little better now. More like a lot better. Been touching up the final project from Phase 3 with my buddy Chris a little bit in preparation for the hiring mixer on the 15th. Other than that, it’s going to be a week of taking it easy looking at companies and whatnot and working on projects and challenges. Yup yup.

Mix from Soulection & Ta-Ku https://soundcloud.com/soulection/soulection-radio-show-221-w-ta-ku

[gintsugi]

Job Hunt Week 1.

Point 2. Tomorrow marks the 2nd week since career week finished at DBC, but I’m treating it as the first. Why? Because well, last week was kind of a mess in terms of figuring out what approach I’d take and all that nonsense. That doesn’t mean that I have everything all figured out right now, but I think I’ll be more on top of things now that I’ve dabbled around with my resume, contacting people, and so forth. I spent the weekend NOT coding. I hung out with a few cohort mates over in Berkeley on Friday, which was really nice. It was the one time all week at that point where I had literally spent no time looking at a computer screen for an extended period of time. I mean, I went to the park and whatnot a few times throughout the week, but coding and job hunting was still on my mind.  Roll around Saturday, I took my sweet time getting out of bed. I ended up not going to the dance event that I had planned on going to, just to save money. I was actually productive, cause I spent my time filling out the paperwork I needed to withdraw my 401k prematurely. Now I know that may not sound like the best idea, but savings are savings, as my friend told me. And I’m using them to extend my stay out here in SF a bit longer so I can focus on getting a job out here or elsewhere. I just need to be within this community for the time being, that much I know.  Sunday - same deal as Saturday, but I made sure I hauled myself over to Church. Signed up for Jr.DevJobs.com or something like that, and got some dinner with some classmates. Then finished the nights with some games. Tomorrow I have a phone call with a company, and I’m hoping that goes well. Before that, I’m hoping to meet a good friend of mine visiting from San Diego, in addition to my other good college friend who also lives out here in SF. Hoping for a good start to the week, since it’s gonna be a busy one. That’s for damn sure. Song:  Weight in Gold by Gallant (Brasstracks Remix) https://soundcloud.com/brasstracks/gallant-weight-in-gold-brasstracks-remix

[gintsugi]

sleep needed.

like, badly. It feels pretty weird being done with DBC right now to be honest - not having a set schedule anymore. There’s all of the things I should be doing, and there’s all of the things that I could be doing. I’m focusing on the shoulds, but even then, each day is still a struggle. I think the main reason I’m finding myself struggling a bit is because this job search is a VERY different experience in comparison to my college job hunt experience. The main reason being, I’m still new to coding whether I want to admit it or not, which isn’t a bad thing when you think about it. That just means there’s a lot more room to grow. But when it comes down to the whole process of searching and applying for jobs, I find myself checking in with others to see what their strategies and tactics are, and ultimately questioning myself at the end of the day. It’s kind of like, “Oh dang, you’ve been applying to 10 companies a day?” Or, “Oh wow, I guess I should be practicing algorithms, too.”  At the end of the day, I really need to just be comfortable with my own approach, which I am still figuring out. That’s not to say that I’m not pleased with my own way or that I’m trying to compete with my classmates and friends. I’m just nervous, really. But hey, the past 2-3 days have been great. I’ve been practicing my Vanilla JavaScript and having fun with CSS animations, and have been getting some sound advice from other DBC alumni and peers. One thing I learned about while watching some Frontend Masters videos was how in JavaScript, variable and function declarations are hoisted - or ‘brought to the top’. That’s my way of putting it really. More importantly, although JavaScript is widely treated as an interpreted language, it also kind of acts as a compiler language in that the JavaScript engine compiles the source code on the spot, and that’s why if you run your code with an invalid line somewhere in it, you’ll immediately get an error. Basically, the engine goes through to try and understand all of the code before executing anything (think “think before you act”), and if it doesn’t understand something, it’ll say, “Hey wait a minute, what’s this mean?” JavaScript is basically a prime example of a non-’Vegas’ coder. Again, this is just what I’ve come to understand so far. Regardless, Kyle Simpson’s videos are pretty sweet. Regarding my actual progress so far with the job search, I’ve actually gotten responses from I’d say..80% of the companies I’ve reached out to so far. I’ve only reached out to like 6 or 7. I kind of need to start keeping better track of that..note to self. I’ve got a few phone calls/coffee dates next week, so I’m looking forward to that, but I’m definitely going to step up my game come next week. Today was just great though. Yesterday I started up a miniature Super Mario card flip game, which I shared with a DBC alum who currently works for a company that I really want to work for. It was my first real introduction to a company out here in California since I’ve attended DBC, and I gotta say that I’m even more determined right now to work my butt off. I got mostly positive feedback on the code that I showed, but also received some really helpful constructive criticism and learned more about best practices and some tricks in the process. I’m super glad that I was able to connect through DBC’s network, and just have the opportunity that I was graciously given today. As of right now, I’m most likely not qualified to apply to the company I visited today, but I THINK that based on how things wrapped up after my introduction, that I can try to seriously apply within a month or two. Oh, and I finished my card game (though I’ll look into other features/bugs later) about an hour or two ago thanks to learning about the CSS3 pointer-events property. Check it out here.  I’ll be working on more mini-projects and most likely a large scale one by next week. Things are getting real now. “But I’m definitely going to take it easy tomorrow,” he thought to himself. Song: Wander with Me by Tom Misch ft. Carmody https://soundcloud.com/tommisch/wander-with-me-feat-carmody -dang, I wrote a lot today.

[gintsugi]

WELP.

I did not keep up with my blog posts at all for the rest of DBC.  A LOT has happened. And as always, I’m throwing out my cop out excuse - it’ll take too long to write about everything right now. From finishing up Phase 2 Passion Projects to learning Rails, to starting Phase 3 Passion Projects where I dabbled a bit in React and learned more about using APIs, to the final week where I spent countless nights working late on my team’s final project...  I DONE GRADUATED!

.. and am now past career week looking for a job. Admittedly, it is really weird no longer having a sense of direction or having a set schedule (granted, I’ve also lost my sense of time lately). At the same time, I realize that this is the most important time in my life, and what I decide to do from here will determine how successful I am in the future.  My previous boss gave me this piece of advice when I had told him about quitting in order to go to a coding bootcamp, “It’s great that you’re making the decision to go out and learn at this camp while you’re young, just make sure that you don’t become dependent on being in a learning environment in order to continue learning.” Something like that at least. And I’ve really taken that advice to heart these past few days. So far, I’ve been applying to a few jobs, slower than I originally intended to, but it’s a start. I’m more focused on relearning what I’ve already learned. By that, I mean that I’m really trying to crack down on my CSS skills and Vanilla JavaScript.  And I’m lovin’ it. I had applied to my first company, or asked for a meetup rather, earlier last week. I was kindly told that I did not have enough experience yet, and that although I demonstrated my ability to learn how to use frameworks, that it’s also imperative that I really solidify my foundation with Vanilla JavaScript. For a while, I was hell bent towards fixing up my old projects (though one of my best friends here at DBC and I are in fact cleaning up our final project), but after speaking to a few alumni, I’ve more or less made the decision to just hold off on them. I don’t want to say that I’ll never get back to them, and I’m aware that it may look bad to leave a project unfinished. But right now, I think it’s more important for me to actually know what I’m doing and focus on best practices so I can tackle the bugs I faced earlier in my older projects more easily. In the meantime, I’ve also been building out small projects.. “Projects”. They may seem small and super basic, but I don’t mind because I’m treating them as building blocks. I’m going to be tackling more JavaScript and CSS this week, and hopefully get around to writing a blog here and there about what I’m learning or what I’m doing. I’ll definitely be utilizing Frontend Masters over the next week. I more or less have 2 months or so to find a job out here in SF before my funds run out, assuming I’m able to take care of all the paperwork I have in the midst of applying to jobs and learning. But hey, this is where the grind really begins and I’m prepared to hustle even harder than I did during DBC. Oh. And I am super glad to be able to spend time searching for music again. Check it. Better Off by IAMNOBODI https://soundcloud.com/iamnobodi/betteroff